The dead rise on campus again
“If you get close enough to a zombie to read the word ‘zombie,’ you’re already in trouble.”
The undead are beginning to rise at USU with the Humans vs. Zombies game that happens each semester. How long do you think you can survive against the unending zombie attack?
Luckily, it’s easy to tell who is a human ally and who’s an undead zombie, because players wear orange bandanas to tell them apart.
Henry Riker is a player with nearly 10 years of involvement with the HvZ community.
“The bandana says ‘human’ on one side and ‘zombie’ on the other, and technically, you can indicate which team you’re on with which word you have facing out,” Riker said. “But they also have you as a human wear it around your arm and as a zombie, wear it around your head.”
Human players use rolled-up socks as ammunition to stun zombies, giving the human time to run and find a more defensible position.
“If you hit a zombie with a sock, that zombie is stunned and doesn’t have to sit still or do an action or anything — just acts as if they are not playing the game until the next respawn,” Riker said. “Respawns are usually every 15 minutes at the 15 minute mark.”
Years ago, human players used Nerf guns to protect themselves from the zombies, with players providing their own. But after these players were turned into zombies, they wouldn’t want to play the game any more.
Some injuries were caused by the toy blasters, so the university had to ask the HvZ community to find another method of weaponry.
The game is played throughout the whole week, both day and night. The only time you’re safe from zombies is when you’re inside a building.
During the day, humans have a day mission they are tasked with completing. At night, everyone participating in the game gets together to join in a challenging night mission where the main objective is to survive.
Teagan Perry, the current USU HvZ president, said having a good time with people while also being in a stressful situation can be fun.
“Night events turn into all-out battles pinning good versus evil,” Perry said. “The team leader, or harbingers as they are referred to in the game, are the primary symbols of this.”
There’s a harbinger for the humans and one for the zombies, and a third one to be a moderator who keeps the game fair.
“I’m the leader of the human team,” Perry said. “Because humans need a leader throughout the entire week, I actually can’t die throughout the week. When we write the lore for the game, a lot of times the two harbingers are kind of like the lead characters who are opposing each other.”
Each year, the HvZ president comes up with a new theme for the week and writes new lore for the players to participate in. This story is what all the day and night missions are based around.
This year, the theme is “the tomb.”
“It’s a little bit of a mixture of a few different things. I’m just generally calling the theme ‘the tomb,’ because we’ve taken elements from ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Tomb Raider’ and ‘The Mummy’ and ancient Egyptian lore,” Perry said. “We’ve kind of combined all those together.”
This semester, the game starts Monday, Oct. 9. There will be a final orientation meeting to join the game that evening at 6 p.m. in Old Main 121. Good luck and watch out for the undead on your way to class!